Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1887-12-09
HONESTY OF WOMEN.
A Writer Claims That 1t Is Due to Their
Inexperience In Money Matters.

Inexperience In Money Matters.
1t is creditable to The general charac-
ter of women in official station that
any lapse of honesty among them at
tracts far more attention that if COM
mitted by man.
Women are being employed more
an more as bookkeepers and cashiers,
and one avowed ground of this en-
ployment is that they are more honest
than men. PROFESSIONALLY they are
so. up to this time. and it is proba BILE
that they will have some permanent
advantage in that way. Their normal
instincts are somewhat higher and
their temptations less. on the side of
perilous indulgences. But it has been
pointed out more than once by the
cautious friends of women that q good
deal OF the present moral advantage
OF the sex. in matters of honesty,
comes simply from inexpelience. They
have hitherto had so little to do
with the direct handling of money
that they regard it with more rever-
ence than men; the bare thought of an
irregularity alarms them; their con-
science is wholly fresh and sensitive;
they can not conceive how person
can wrong another out of dime and
live. Moreover. they overrate the diff
fculties and perils consequent on
wrong-doing; young book-keeper
told me once that whenever her ac-
counts failed to be balance. if it were
only by single cent. she felt as if
policeman were just coming in at the
door. 1t is as we find to be the case
with lending money; any prudent per-
son would rather lend it to woman
because he knows lhat the chance of
repayment is greater In the present
$ ate of society debt of five dollars
seems tremendous affair to II woman
and very small aft tr to man; but
let that woman borrow and repay q
few times, and the fine edge of sensi-
bility begins to Gear off, precisely as
it does with man. but more slowly.
In looking over the list of persons who
have done me the honor to borrow
money of meas Charles Lambs
friends used to describe his debtors
find that the number of bad debts is
nearly as great among women as
among men; but it Is altogether likely
that those women have suffered pangs
of regret at first, while the men have
probably taken it with much greater
equanimity.
We must Away bear in mind that
women, as cl ass, are only ju It be-
ginning to live outside of the shelter
of tutelage and tradition, and while
this accounts for many of their faults.
it must also be accepted as explaining
some Of their merits. If we claim
with the ancient philosopher that 1.-THE
virtues of the man and the woman are
the same" we must also ad nit that
their essential faults are the same;
otherwise we prove too much.
I and assume that scclusion has
done our sisters such incalcu-
liable good it seems rather pity to
draw them from it. For my own part,
believe that with equal financial
training and opportunity women will
occasionally steal; not so much prob
dDly, even III VIE elltl, us IlcH 90, OUT
in proportion sufficient to prove them
human. 1t is absurd to suppose that
a sex which produced so consumate a
bit of fraud as the Boston Woman S
Bank, is not capable of other equally
fine strokes in the same direction by
and by. And as the offender in that
case found faithful allies among the
innocent of her own sex. who stoutly
defend her, and nut money into her
hands, and denounced in the news
papers anybody who spoke ill of her,
so for long time to come will the
very inexperience of women heighten
and facilitate the guilt of those partic-
ular sisters who are fraudulent The
virtue of women. to be absolutely
secure. must have some thing more
than the negative pro duction of ig.
norance -Harper's Bazdr
GENERAL.